Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Autumnal Glow

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Today is the first day of Autumn, and I welcome it with open arms. Autumn is far and away my favorite season. It means the end of summer, which I hate. I hate the sun. I hate the heat (although here in the Bay Area, it's not bad; what would possess someone to live in a hellish environment like Phoenix or Las Vegas is beyond me, unless you are so old your body's thermo-regulatory system is shot). And all the bad things that have ever happened to me in my life took place in the summer. So, adios, wretched season. {raising middle finger at the calendar}

And welcome my beloved fall. Welcome the cool air and the dead leaves. Welcome the Halloween costumes and anticipation of the ski season. Welcome to the shorter days and the longer nights. Yes, it's my favorite time of the year, and here we are at the very beginning of it.

Now, it took gonads the size of beach balls to be so screamingly bearish in the face of the two most bullish days in market history, but I did it. I did it, and I was right. So hurrah for me.

Having said that, after the close, it dawned on me that the S&P 500 was precisely at its 23.6% Fibonacci level (on a medium-sized retracement, from 5/19/2008 to 9/18/2008). I wouldn't be at all shocked to see a bit of a bounce in the morning, and I suddenly wished I had the chance to have lightened up on this position. Oh, well. What's done is done! So I'm balancing some pats on the back with some butt-kicks too.

What I'm less worried about is oil and gold. Now, I've already admitted that I sold gold/silver way too early. That was a fantastic trade (thank you again, Gary!) and I only enjoyed half the move, if that. But I feel very good about where I am entering these gold/silver/oil shorts right now.

The chart to watch is EUR/USD. This has had a gargantuan upward since September 10th. I think it is very close to turning downward again, if it hasn't already. (Note: for some reason, the day's bar isn't showing below; click on the Present tab to see it up-to-date).

In turn, there are a bevy of charts that "hang off" this which look exceedingly bearish. One of the best places to start is the one below, which is the basis for the DIG and DUG ETFs.

And, likewise, $CRX seems ready to fly downward in a deflationary spiral.

Oil's strength, I believe, will have ended today; that bold line around $90 on the USO is very strong indeed.

The same goes for gold and silver. I entered some gold shorts on Friday, and there were down hard today. I added substantially to those positions. Notice the tremendous overhead on $XAU which I have tinted.

I have a significant position in $NDX puts which I entered (thank God) near the peak on Friday. I held on to these tight and continue to do so. Here's a slice of that market, and this chart looks pretty sick to me.

Even moreso, if the $COMPQ breaks that tinted area around 2,000, all hell is going to break loose.

Finally, I bought a chunk of FXP today, since I likewise feel China has fully retraced.

If you want specific symbols, just look at my watch lists on the right column. I may not show any specific symbols for quite some time, because there are simply too many great things to short. It's just not worth the bother.

Let's hope for another good day tomorrow. I am absolutely delighted that the market is spitting in the eye of that traitorous  son-of-a-bitch Paulson. It couldn't happen to a nicer guy.